


Color Me Blue

by TheQueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Galra Keith (Voltron), Keith falls through Universes, Keith is a Mess, Lance does his best, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:04:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: This time he will fix things. This time they won’t fail.This time he’ll save Lance.





	

I want you  
I'll color me blue  
Anything it takes to make you stay  
Only seeing myself  
When I'm looking up at you

\- Troye Sivan [ _Blue_ ]

...

The water comes rushing and he lets it consume him, fill his nose and his lungs until he comes to, fingers scrambling against hard wood floors and then hands are there rolling him up and over, onto knees so he can hunch over and let the water out in brittle, sharp coughs. Coughs that rack his freezing frame as a crowd surges backwards and someone is barking orders. Sneakers squeak on hardwood floors. Children gasp. A woman nearby wraps her acrylic nails around his arm and ask him if he’s okay.

His does not see her. Cannot. Instead he falls back, lets someone catch him as his eyes desperately scan the crowd. Because he’s here. He’s always here. And… and…

There. Towards the back. Tall. Brown skin. Brown hair. He has blue eyes this time. Blue like the first time and Keith finds his mouth moving up into a smile even as shivers cause his arms to spasm and there are people in white, paramedics, entering his field of vision as he slowly loses consciousness again.

.

He knows this ceiling. Knows it’s cracks, faint lines only paint deep. He knows if he gets up, takes two steps to the right he’ll find the keys to the bike he hasn’t seen in life times. He knows if he gets up, takes four steps to the left he’ll find the knife his mother left him.

He gets up.

The helmet feels familiar in his arms. The keys dangle from loose fingers. In his first life Shiro had helped him build this bike. His memories of this life tell him the same. The same jokes. The same times. The same heat on his back the day they finished and Shiro looked down at him and Keith thought this is what it means to have a family. All the same…

Halfway to the garage, Keith steps around a corner and finds Lance. Lance just standing in the middle of the hallway, eyes down, shoulders hunched. Keith takes a moment to drink him in, follow his silhouette from his feet up. And Keith hopes he looks up, wishes he would look up so he can see those eyes. Blue like his element. Blue like the sky. Blue like their planet. Blue like they should be.

And he does, when Keith steps forward without realizing until he’s standing too close for strangers to stand (but they’re not, not to Keith.) Keith holds out his helmet. “You wanna go for a ride?”

.

Nowhere smells quiet like earth. The wind nips at his nose and hair and he tilts his head up and up to look at the way the stars over the desert twinkle. Behind him, Lance says nothing, just clings harder and Keith hopes he’s smiling.

In the distance, Keith can hear Blue calling to him, begging him to bring her her pilot and Keith finds his bike turning as the wind breaks against them and they speed up as they near an edge.

“That’s a cliff.” It’s the first thing Lance has said since he accepted the helmet and his voice is shrill in his ear. Familiar.

Keith’s face splits into a smile and he yells back with a laugh, “Trust me!”

And they’re falling.

.

They return as the sun is coming up. Lance pulls off the helmet with a huff but it’s all show. His shoulders are relaxed; the tension is gone. He’s laughing around his words, half complaints and compliments as they make their way back to the dorms. Morning call will be soon and they need to be back. But for all the fear of being caught, Lance’s excitement is infectious and Keith falls into familiar banter, playing along.

When it’s time to stop, Keith almost follows Lance home, tripping over his feet when Lance stops at a crossroad. “Thanks,” Lance whispers.

Keith ducks his head, can feel the heat along his ears. “No problem,” he whispers back. And when he looks up, Lance looks so very, very beautiful.

.

He wakes with a near scream in the middle of class, gasping for air as his classmates mutter amongst themselves and his professor gives him concerned looks. The name “Lance” sits heavy on his tongue as his eyes search him out so his heart can calm.

And there he is. Blue eyes staring back at him. The same depthless blue as the water Keith had watched swallow him whole in their last life.

.

Shiro comes back from some sort of shore leave and asks Keith if he’s okay. He’s heard about the episodes and the nightmares from other professors and Keith tries his best to wave off his concerns, to convince him he’ll be fine.

They go to their favorite café and order the same thing like always and sit in the same spot as always. Shiro talks about what he did and Keith can recall these details if he tries hard enough. Trips to the beach with the nieces. Cooking with his mother. Simple things that had made the Keith of his first life burn with a bittersweet envy. Bitter because he wanted it. Sweet because he was so very happy Shiro had it.

Now he listens and is simply grateful. There are some things he will not, cannot change. Kerberos and its failure will bring them Pidge. Its important Shiro has these good memories to survive for.

Then he will start fixing things, changing things. This time they won’t fail.

This time he’ll save Lance.

.

His second life he woke to Lance hovering over him, protective and worried, speaking of kings and queens and heads rolling on chopping blocks as the smell of wet forest and blood filled his senses.

In the end, he died hovering over Lance as the smell of wet forests and blood filled his senses and tears clouded his sight.

“Take care of yourself,” Lance had tried to make him promise as if Keith couldn’t feel the arrow digging into his side as the enemy forces pressed in.

“I’ll find you,” Keith had said instead, “I promise I’ll find you.”

.

Keith stumbles on Lance and Hunk in the library, noses buried in books. He’s wandering. School doesn’t mean anything to him. He knows how this world will play out. He knows what he needs to do. In a few months, he won’t even be attending here after all. But Lance and Hunk don’t know that, Keith muses, pushing the hair from his eyes as he just stares. It’s good to seem them like this. Young. Innocent.

He grabs a random, interesting book off the shelf. A fiction book. An old sci-fi classic and grabs the seat near Lance. The library is quiet enough that Keith can almost imagine they’re back on the castle, killing time between missions.

“Keith!” And Keith can’t imagine why Lance would be so surprised until he realizes they haven’t really spoken to each other since that bike ride. But he isn’t the red paladin for nothing.

“Lance,” Keith echoes, clearly amused and Hunk eyes him from over the top of his book, nosy as ever.

Lance frowns, closes his book. “What are you doing here? You always study in your room.”

“You know where I study?” Keith smirks.

Lance’s face turns red and he stammers as Hunk laughs, dropping his book to smile at Keith. “Hunk,” he offers.

Keith smiles back, “Keith.”

.

Keith mentions off hand a friend he’s made. “Lance,” he says as if the name doesn’t carry so much weight that at times it can choke him. “He’s in the beginner class, but he…might need some tutoring.”

Shiro holds his eye for a little too long and Keith feels that infuriating heat in his cheeks and ears. Finally, he looks away. Shiro laughs, “I’m glad you’re making friends.”

Keith smiles.

.

As expected, Lance spends half of the lesson in silence, faithfully paying attention and taking notes, and the other half complimenting Shiro. Keith does his best to avoid jealousy. It’s hero worship nothing more. And if Shiro catches his eye with an apologetic look every now and then, then Keith does his best to remind himself there is nothing to be jealous of.

In all the lives he has lived and lost, Keith has always found Lance, has always fallen for Lance. It always took time, patients, and a certain amount of unnecessary bickering that defined their relationship, but that was okay. That made sense. It was just how they were.

Keith will never, no matter how many lives he has lived and will live, wish for anything different.

.

Two weeks later, Lance will pull him aside, ears and face still red after hearing Officer Yu complimented his landing, and says thank you. “I… I couldn’t have,” he starts to say. And Keith won’t allow those thoughts to fester.

“Of course you could have,” he says, blunt and to the point. How he’s always been. How he always will be. There are certain things he does not like about himself, certain things he cannot change. But not this. His words carry weight because he means them. Keith will always mean them. “They were just teaching it wrong.”

“You never struggle,” Lance points out, face still red. And where did the space between them go? When did Lance get so close? From here he can see the freckles along the bridge of Lance’s nose. Cute.

“People learn differently,” Keith insists. “I got it. Now you’re getting it.” He takes a step back and feigns indifference. “Who knows… work hard enough and maybe you’ll almost get as good as me.”

Lance scowls, takes two large steps on his stupidly long legs so he’s walking just a smidge infront of Keith and snaps, “Is that a challenge?”

Keith shrugs and looks up at Lance with a grin, “I doubt it.”

Lance stops walking, turns, and jabs a finger into his chest. He’s towering, using his height to intimidate because even this young and inexperienced Lance was always good at working people when he bothered to. “Just you watch, Kogane. I’ll fucking fly you into the ground.”

Keith grins, all sharp teeth. There is a fire in Lance’s eyes that he knows are echoed in his own. “I’d like to see you try.”

.

Three months later and onto the second semester, Lance takes the official ranking of second seat. He lost to Keith by four seconds.

.

Shiro is announced as the pilot of the Kerberos mission.

.

Keith begins to doubt himself.

.

Lance finds him sitting behind his bike with an unopened carton of cigarettes in his hands. “Ya know,” he says as greeting, leaning against the bike. The garage door is open, the empty expanse of dirt road and rocky cliffs stretching out and out to beyond the horizon as the sun begins to set yellow and then orange and fiery red. “When I heard you’d bought something off of Benjamin, I figured it was more slander than fact.”

“Benjamin appears to have poor business practices, going around blabbing about sales,” Keith jokes, tipping his head back so he can see Lance, expression blank and eye’s trained on the horizon. “Figure it defeats the purpose of being underground and illegal.”

Lance hums and Keith thinks he’s agreeing with him.

“You wanna talk about it?” Lance finally asks and Keith drops the carton. He’d smoked a few times. In different lives when it was more common to smoke than not and the smell of smoke was around every corner and inside every restaurant. Lance, at one point, had been the reason he’d begun, a way to justify his presence to the street performer who serenaded the block near that Keith’s workplace. A talented musician. Keith allowed his eyes to drop to Lance’s long fingers and wondered if this Lance had ever thought of piano.

Lance laces his fingers together as if self-conscious and Keith turned to follow Lance’s eyes past the horizon. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Shiro’s worried about you,” Lance says, taking a seat—finally—next to Keith.

Keith says nothing.

Lance sighs, “I’m worried about you.”

Keith curses softly. Lance means it. There is vulnerability in his voice, a softness. In his original life, it would take three months in space for Lance to admit he cared for Keith. Here it had taken four months on Earth.

If he’d already changed so much…

“I’m sorry.” And Keith means it. His words carry weight. He makes sure of it. “I don’t… I can’t…” He takes a deep breath and leans into Lance, let’s the younger boy catch his weight against his shoulder and just breaths in the smell of oil and desert and  _Lance_. “I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Lance says after a moment. “I can work with that.”

“Yeah?”

Lance shifts, let’s Keith fall closer as he wraps an arm around Keith’s back. “Yeah.”

.

In Keith’s third life he wakes up wrapped in Lance’s arm as a man in black breaks down their door.

It ends as quickly as it begins.

.

Lance becomes a constant after that. A kind shadow. Hovering nearby with a kind word and kinder touch. Keith gets used to it. Misses it when classes and obligations pull them apart until they find each other again in hallways and in dorms. In this way, Hunk becomes a part of his life when before they met for the first time in his shack a good year and a half from now.

It’s good to have Hunk back in his life. His smiles. His kindness. His easy understanding. And yet still a mess in the best of ways. Overdramatic and righteous in the face of poor teachers and bullying. With a mind that thinks too fast for his own good.

Next to him, Hunk pops his bubble gum as they wait for Lance to exit Iverson’s office. He’s scowling. “I can’t believe this,” Hunk’s knuckles are white from the way he grips the banister. “This is… This is bullshit.”

Keith nods, eyes trained on the wall as he fights the urge to break in and demand this stop. Cheating? As if Lance hadn’t worked hard for those grades. As if Lance hadn’t studied and studied and studied. “This is bullshit,” Keith echoes, gritting his teeth and flexing his fingers as if he could feel the Galra claws he was going to develop just under the skin.

Time passes. Slowly. Before the door finally squeaks open to reveal a flushed Lance, tears in the corners of his eyes. Hunk puts a heavy hand on his shoulder just as Keith’s body jerks forward with the urge to break Iverson’s face. Lance looks up, face blank and shrugs.

“Come here,” Hunk calls, pulling Lance away from the closed door and into his arms. Keith reaches out and grabs one of Lance’s hands. “It’s going to be okay, Lance.”

Lance sniffles, “They’re going to retest me.”

Keith tightens grip and wills himself still. “Then we’ll prepare for it,” Keith promises. Lance turns, cheeks pressed against Hunk’s shoulder to look at him. “We won’t let them take this from you, Lance.”

Lance smile, “Thanks, Keith. Hunk.”

“Course,” Hunk whispers as he shares a hard look with Keith above Lance’s head. They won’t let anyone hurt Lance. Not now. Not ever.

.

Keith shares his thoughts with Shiro the next time they meet. “Lance studied hard,” Keith cries, “You know that. I know that. What the fuck?”

Shiro nods, taking a sip of his latte. “It’s politics.”

“…what?”

Shiro shrugs, “Lance is a son of Senator McClain. The one that wants to cut military funding and redirect the funds towards the new housing projects.” At Keith’s confused look, Shiro shrugs again, “They talk about it all the time in the teacher’s lounge. I bet that’s why they’re giving Lance such a hard time.”

“I thought Lance’s dad was a fighter pilot,” Because Keith remembered that conversation. Sitting under the stars as they drifted through free territory, talking about nothing to pass the time before the insomnia gave to sleep. Lance had never mentioned…

“Senator McClain was military,” Shiro says, “Air force. Met him during my graduation ceremony. He’s actually one of the four that recommended me for the Kerberos mission.”

Keith frowns.  _Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it_. “That doesn’t excuse their treatment of Lance,” he insists.

“That’s politics,” And after a moment of watching Keith scowl down at the table, Shiro relents with a found smile. “But I’ll see what I can do to make sure it’s fair.”

Keith finally smiles. “Thanks, Shiro.”

Shiro grins. “You really like this boy, don’t you?”

“Shiro!”

.

His forth life starts as a Galra. A halfbreed. More monster than man. Cleaning prison cells and trying his best to keep his head down. Out of sight. Out of notice.

The day he’s assigned to Sendak’s ship just as they load the Red Lion into the cargo bay, Keith is certain this is all just one big joke. That he’ll wake up at some point, half-asleep and still in Lance’s arms. But as one of the other’s snap at him to get back to work, Keith is forced to grit his teeth and keep going. He’s endured enough. He just has to wait it out.

The day Shiro arrives, Keith runs to Red and begs her for answers. “Did I do something wrong?” Keith asks as she stares down at him, impassive and yet aware. Their minds just barely brushing before she shuts him out, silent as always. “Please. Give me a sign. Tell me what to do.”

Shiro does well. Better than expected. And in a way nothing has really changed. Then the day comes and it is Keith’s turn to clean Shiro’s cell. Matt is there. Keith recognizes him from Pidge. They never found him in Keith’s original life and Keith wonders if they ever did. After he… died?

Keith isn’t sure what to say, how to greet them. He stands by the door. Cell key shaking in his hand as he tries to will himself forward. Is Shiro called Champion yet? Can he say that? “Um…” he clears his throat to announce himself as he lets the door open and he pushes the cleaning cart forward. “I’m…I’m here to clean your cell?”

Matt looks up at him for a moment before looking away, standing, and walking towards an older man in the corner. Pidge’s father? Keith hadn’t noticed him.

Shiro doesn’t acknowledge him.

Keith nods, bites his lip, and gets to work. Janitorial staff isn’t the nicest position to have on a war ship, but it is a position that leads him here. To Red. To Shiro. He doesn’t take pride in it, but for Shiro and Pidge he’ll do a good job.

It’s as he’s emptying the buckets provided to prisoners for their waste that Shiro moves. It startles him so badly; he drops the bucket, watching it splash against the wall and his feet. He bites his lip to keep from screaming. Hands shaking as he leans down to grab the bucket again. “S-sorry,” Keith whispers, emptying what is left and grabbing his mop. His ears press flat against his head and he fights to keep his hand still as he tries to clean his mess.

Shiro moves again and Keith hunches inward. He doesn’t know why he’s so scared. But he is. He wants Lance. The thought shocks him, but it’s true. He wants Lance. He wants to go back to his third life. He wants to wake up wrapped in Lance’s arms or to the smell of Lance’s cooking. He wants to go home to Earth. He wants Red to acknowledge him.

He’s tired of this life. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, but he’s tired.

After a moment, Shiro takes the mop from his slack grip and begins cleaning. “Wha-.”

Shrio looks up at him and then back down, continuing to clean as Keith can only stare.

“Hey.” And it’s Pidge’s father reaching out to him. “I’m going to touch you okay?”

Keith blinks, realizing in that moment his cheeks are wet. Pidge’s father takes his hand and leads him away to a cot that Matt sits on. “Shhh, now,” Pidge’s father whispers, helping him sit down on the cot, “It’s going to be okay. It’s only a little mistake.”

Keith takes a stuttered breath, “S-ss-sorry. M’ so sorry. I- I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” Pidge’s father rubs soothing circles on his arms, “It’s okay. We’re not mad. Right, Matt?”

“Yup!” His voice is higher than Keith imagined but he has Pidge’s smile. He reaches out and takes Keith’s other hand. Keith sniffles

Shiro doesn’t say anything, just hands the mop back to Keith when he’s done. There isn’t much left to clean and Keith does it quickly.

As he leaves, he “forgets” a set of clean sheets and pillows meant for the gladiator cells.

.

The next week Keith is assigned to Shiro’s cell again and he wonders if it is a test. There is no hiding the fact that he’s half-human. Everyone who knew his traitor father knows he fell in love with a human woman. Keith wonders if in his first life it was the same, but the thought leaves as quickly as it comes. What is the point of wondering when he will never know?

“Why haven’t you taken the key?” Keith asks as some point, looking over at Shiro who sits next to Matt and Pidge’s father on the bed as he works.

Pidge’s father shares a look with Shiro that Keith cannot understand and then turns back to Keith, “And go where?”

“Home,” Keith whispers. He wants to go back to Earth. He wants to go home to Lance. “I want to see Earth, again.” He tells Shiro, looking up. “Don’t you?”

“You’ve been to Earth?” Matt asks, voice full of awe.

Keith nods, “My mother was human.” He smiles. This Keith has memories of his mother, has memories of his early years on earth before his father came back for him, took him away to live here, enslaved to the Galra Empire. “She was beautiful. A Korean woman with grey eyes and the softest hair.” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, “I remember going to the park with her. The green grass. The blue sky. White clouds.”

They look awed when he opens his eyes and he shrugs, “I can’t imagine not trying to go back.” Even if he would be a freak. Purple spotted skin and cat ears. Only his eyes are human. He looks down at his hands and flexes his claws.

He leaves soon after that. Unsure if he’s made a mistake.

.

Keith isn’t assigned to their cell for some time.

At some point whispers of the Champion begin to rise and Keith curses the Galra, the Empire, Zarkon.

.

Shiro has begun to gray the next time Keith sees him. Pidge’s father and Matt are gone. But the first thing Keith notices is the bleeding. A cut across the nose that Keith knows will scar.

“Here,” Keith offers a clean rag before beginning to change the sheets on the bed.

“What’s your name?” It is the first thing Shiro has ever said to him and Keith freezes. It takes a moment for him to find his voice.

“Keith.”

“I’m Shiro.”

Keith stands straight and looks at him. “It is good to meet you, Shiro.”

.

“I want to escape,” Shiro whispers to him one day as Keith cleans his cell. Shiro has been upgraded again. This one has windows and he works hard to remove any finger smudges. Keith does not know how long it has been. But Shiro’s hair has turned white in the front and the scar across his nose has gone from angry red to a dull red, bordering on pink.  

Keith wonders when Shiro will lose his arm.

“I can take you with me,” Shiro tells him. “I’ll take you home.”

Keith doesn’t say anything.

.

Shiro has been given to the druids.

There is nothing Keith can do to stop this.

.

Shiro has been given his own apartment the next time Keith sees him. Apparently, Shiro requested him as his housemaid. As a highly valued gladiator, Sendak sees no trouble granting his wish. “Please him well,” Sendak hisses, amused as Keith straightens from his bow.

"Vrepit Sa.” Keith hisses through gritted teeth.

“They think you will sleep with me,” Keith says in way of greeting when Shiro opens the door.

“I-,” Shiro blinks. The metal arm is here and Keith takes it without thinking, running his fingers over the industrial design as Shiro lets the door close behind them. “I don’t…”

“When do we escape?” Keith asks, letting the hand go. He is tired of this. He is so very tired.

.

It is only a few months later when they try. Shiro gets in the pod as Keith watches, holding back the sentries just long enough to give Shiro a chance.

He knows Shiro will come back for him.

.

It does not take long.

.

Red is just as beautiful as he remembers, a siren call in the back of his mind as he lands in the hanger of the castle. Yellow, Green, and Blue close behind.

 _Lance_.

Stepping out of Red’s mouth, he doesn’t expect Allura’s anger or Coran’s fear. Doesn’t expect Pidge to take a step forward as if to hurt him as Hunk just watches, confused. It is only Shiro who moves forward to embrace him, who takes his hand and urges him forward on shaking knees, body protesting any movement after a week being punished for his “betrayal.”

 _I needs a healing pod_ , he thinks as Shiro introduces him to the group as if they have just met. And they have. But they also haven’t.

The blackness comes suddenly, catching him without time for him to brace himself. And then there are hands holding him as a familiar face hovers in view just beyond the black.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles, reaching up to trace Lance’s lips just as everything fades away.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is one of the other stories I mentioned I've been working on. Please let me know what you think?


End file.
